This brochure offers decision-makers in the real estate and energy industries, as well as urban and municipal developers, a broad overview of the topics of decentralised energy generation and supply, and raises awareness of the goal of decarbonisation by 2050 at the latest. The advancing digitalization in the construction and …
THE BANGLADESH government has modified procedures for nongovernmental organisations (NGOs) in order to simplify procedures and establish their accountability, reports Mostafa Kamal Majumder. The step followed allegations by the NGO Affairs Bureau that leading NGOs were violating rules. Under the new rules, the ministry of home affairs will decide whether …
January 30, 1989: Official Secrets Act imposed on 10 villages around the dam site; 18 protesting activists and 500 villagers arrested. February 22: Medha Patkar and 8,000 others arrested near dam site. May 18, 1990: Armed police beat up people in 17 Madhya Pradesh villages that would be the first …
WHEN THE UN Sub-Commission on Human Rights meets in Geneva in August, we may see another forward step by the growing movement for international acceptance for the concept of environmental rights. The meeting will review a three-year study on the links between human rights and the environment by the sub-commission's …
MOST OF the 300 million indigenous people in the world live in highly vulnerable ecosystems and have often been deprived of their human rights and fundamental freedom, resulting in dispossession of their land and resources. Because they are such a high risk group, they are also the most in need …
Brazil: All persons are entitled to an ecologically balanced environment. China: The state is to protect and improve the living environment and the ecological environment, and prevent and combat pollution and other hazards. Guyana: In the interests of the present and future generations, the state is to take all appropriate …
THIRD World Network (TWN), a Malaysia-based environment group, has voiced its concern over some basic issues in USA's controversial interpretative statement of the Biodiversity Convention, which US President Bill Clinton has agreed to sign (Down To Earth, June 15, 1993). The US interpretation says, "Private parties (read companies) should have …
LABELLING the government's forest policy, in force since 1988, as monopolistic and inefficient, the World Bank (WB) insists the best solution now would be to encourage private industrial plantations on forest lands. WB has issued its latest review of the country's forest sector, describing it as an "overview...for Indian policy …
WORLD Bank documents reveal the following stages in its forestry policy evaluation: 1950-1978:Concentration on industrial plantations and logging operations. 1978-1990: -- Thrust on social forestry (developing fuelwood plantations) and watershed management. Forestry included in such sectors as rural development, agriculture, irrigation and energy. 1991: revision -- Focus on protection of …
EVERYONE agrees that the greatest achievement of the world's largest-ever environment conference -- at Rio last year -- was the establishment of the Commission for Sustainable Development (CSD) to monitor environmental degradation. But how effective the 53-member CSD, scheduled to hold its first meeting on June 14, will be is …
A typical PALM exercise takes about five days and includes the following: Day 1: Introductory The focus is on understanding the history of the village, its layout and the infrastructure available. Some other exercises called "empathisers" and "equalisers" are also included. These are held in the village and include the …
WHEN VISITING a village in Tamil Nadu's Dharmapuri or Karnataka's Mysore districts, you may come across a group of about 25 adults busily laying out an intricate design on the ground, using powdered rice, coloured chalk, twigs and pebbles. The designs are not mere patterns in colour; they are diagrams …
IMPORT of waste scrap material -- some of which could be toxic -- for recycling, has created a controversy in Indonesia. Scavengers in Jakarta are complaining that the price of recycled items has fallen so low, their livelihood is threatened. Their demand for an immediate ban is supported by the …
THOUGH the implementation of a structural adjustment programme has yet to be announced by either Indonesia or the World Bank, recent events indicate such a step has already been taken. The 1993-94 Indonesian budget increases total income-tax revenue by 36 per cent and also raises the cost of transport, electricity …
JUST 5 km north of Kerala's state capital, the 4,000 fisherfolk of Thumba village ready fishing lines and canoes, oblivious of the roar from the Indian Space Research Organisation's launch site nearby. Their catch is mainly kozhuva, hooked along the 7-km natural reef. But with the arrival of fishing trawlers, …
AS WOMEN in Rajasthan insist on being treated by only another woman, Jagaran is making an effort to recruit women as gunis. One much sought after woman herbalist is 42-year-old Laxmi Bai of Gamana Sagar village in Udaipur district. She is the mother of six, and the wife of a …
JAGARAN is a non-government organisation working on reviving the dying art of herbal healing in an impoverished tribal belt in Udaipur district. But its efforts have provoked a backlash among local allopaths and Karu Ram, a guni as herbalists are called, explains why: "Because we provide effective and free treatment …
AN ANSWER to the country's deepening energy crisis could be biogas, which besides being a non-polluting energy source, also provides enriched manure and improves local sanitation and health standards. Biogas consists largely of methane gas and it is produced through the anaerobic fermentation of cattle dung and other organic wastes. …
THOUGH Haryana is an agriculturally developed state, its Rewari district is poor and handicapped by lack of drinking water, sharp gander inequality and educational backwardness. Rewari averages 65 cm of rain annually, not enough for efficient fuming and its salinity is such that cultivating the undulating stretches of the Arivall! …
As a representative of an NGO from the North that looks into issues of the South, how do you react to conflicts between the South's priorities in sustainable development and those of the North? It's a curious situation for an activist to realise the despondency of the situation. It's not …
AFTER two decades of Project Tiger, conservationists concede it is impossible to protect simultaneously tigers, trees and people"s livelihood. This was the major conclusion of an international seminar in New Delhi in February to assess the highly publicised project. Seminar participants identified the lack of local community involvement in protecting …
